MONTANA OUTLAWS TOUCH SCREEN VOTING MACHINES

[feelthebreeze]

MONTANA OUTLAWS TOUCH SCREEN VOTING MACHINES

REPRESENTATIVE BRADY WISEMAN, BOZEMAN, MT - I saw your link to the
Accuview story on IRV. I thought you might like to know that here in
Montana, we just outlawed touch screen voting machines. House Bill
297, sponsored by
myself, passed the Montana Legislature by wide margins. It simply
requires that paper ballots be used in all elections. The ballots may
be counted by machine, and may be marked for the voter by a machine,
but we will not allow electronic ballots, with a tiny exception for
handicapped voters.

My profession is software engineering. I was able to convince my
colleagues in the Legislature that touch screen voting machines are
unreliable, badly flawed, insecure, and require massive amounts of
acceptance testing that typically is not done or even thought about.

But the real winner was the suggestion that in a close election, the
candidate on the short end of the count could not examine the ballots
or the voting systems, because they are private property protected as
trade secrets. A blatant appeal to the self interest of elected
officials carried
the day, helped by a two-month recount in a House race last November
and December, not decided until the weekend before the Legislature
convened, that swung the balance of power. Spread the word, we can
kill these machines....

WISEMAN'S BILL
http://laws.leg.state.mt.us/pls/laws05/LAW0210W$BSIV.ActionQuery?P_BILL_NO1=
297&P_BLTP_BILL_TYP_CD=HB&Z_ACTION=Find

[Cleita]

1. This is good news. If Montana can do it, we can do it

nationwide.

[feelthebreeze]

33. Need help to pass this thread to...

2004 Election Results and Discussion. Can't get in to post this important item to the forum. Can others try please. Thanks.

[Nothing Without Hope]

45. It has been done - here's the link in 4ERD:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x370268

[RAF]

2. nice

:kick:

[Dying Eagle]

3. Woohoo

Now the state will go Red legit....

[stellanoir]

4. yeehaw !!!

let us hope as Montana goes. . .so goes the nation.

finally a reasonable educated voice has an impact.

spent some time in Bozeman years ago and loved it.

glad to know there such a voice influencing things out there.

[spooky3]

5. I could not get the link to work (tried several ways).

[snowbear]

6. Wow.. First Montana goes "BLUE"...

and now this !!

Kudos to the Big Sky state!! ~~~~~~ :bounce: :toast:

[Dying Eagle]

9. Montana goes "BLUE"???

Did I miss something??

[UrbScotty]

11. I think they're referring to their new Democratic governor.

Not the Presidential race.

[Pirate Smile]

18. Both state houses too, I believe.

This is why the state parties matter.

[Dying Eagle]

24. ok, thank you

[snowbear]

31. Yes... both houses... Inside Politics dubbed them...

"Blue Montana", but if you read the Montana board here @ DU.. you see that they are quite proud of being called that...

~~~~~~~ :headbang:

[blondeatlast]

7. Montanans are nothing if not practical. I lived there as a youngster,

and I know they are damn honest and paractical people.

Damn, I'm proud of my once adopted--and breathtakingly beautiful--state!

:toast: :toast: :toast: :toast: :toast: ...aaaaaaaaaaah, what the hell--

A round for the whole damn state and it's Dem governor!

SA-WEEEEEEEEEEET!

[DRoseDARs]

8. Erm, it's not the touchscreens that are the problem...

...it's how the votes are recorded, counted, and if they can be verified (in the physical form of a papertrail) with public confidence, in addition to whether or not all of this is done in the public eye as is traditional instead of this "No no no, you can't see what we're doing. This is our propriety voting software. You'll just have to trust us..." malarky.

Technophobes :eyes:

[cestpaspossible]

14. See Jon Ellingson's bill linked in my comment below

and please actually read Wiseman's bill before you criticize it.

Inform yourself.

[DRoseDARs]

35. MONTANA OUTLAWS TOUCH SCREEN VOTING MACHINES

and please actually read the thread title before you criticize me.

Inform yourself.

and the links you provided appear to be two seperate bills, and only the first one seems to be spoken of (Though it was a broken link, so how exactly was I supposed to read it before you decided to attack me?) in the original post giving rise to this thread.

Inform yourself.



I have neither time nor education to fully understand legalese. Best to leave such things to those with the dedication to focus on this issue. I have, however, "informed myself" of electronic voting since 2000. But thanks anyway for your trite little post.

[cestpaspossible]

38. Yeah they are two separate bills, both passed this year and signed

by Governor Schwietzer.

I don't know why the link didn't work for you because they are working links... although I guess if you say you aren't willing to read 'legalese' you don't need the link anyway....


but the point is, that the things you addressed in your post are covered in Ellingson's bill (now law). I'm sorry you perceived my post as an attack on you; it certainly was not meant that way; I will try to be more diplomatic in the future (although it's not something I'm good at).

http://data.opi.state.mt.us/bills/2005/billhtml/HB0297.htm

http://data.opi.state.mt.us/bills/2005/billhtml/SB0302.htm

[DRoseDARs]

53. I apologize for missing your intent and accept your apology as well...

:toast:

Anyway like I implied, reading legislation is to me like rubbing razorblades in one's eyes: It gets messy and is ultimately just too painful. I have much better things to do with my time and abilities and there are plenty of people who understand how to read and understand that stuff far better than I. I have to take the Cliff Notes versions and run with them. I guess the title of the thread is a little misleading then?

[cestpaspossible]

54. yeah see posts 40 & 41

and for what it's worth the Montana House was tied 50/50 this year, and I'm very proud of many of the things our Democratic legislators were able to accomplish, but, if we can just get one more seat in 2006, we will be able to do a lot more in the next session. So that's why I'm eager for people - even if it's not you - to check out the actual legislation and see if it can be improved.

[Xithras]

10. I don't think a ban is necessary

As a computer programmer and a Comp Sci instructor, I understand both the benefits and risks of computerized voting. The idea of touchscreen voting isn't bad in and of itself, we just need to make sure that we have an authenticated, non computerized backup for recounts.

In other words, we need RECEIPTS. A basic thermal printer generating a continuous receipt onto an internal spool is all that's needed to make these machines tamper resistant. It would be trivial to make that receipt human-readable and require the voter to "accept" it before the vote is added.

I'm honestly stumped why VERIFIED electronic voting systems aren't pushed more. It seems like everyones in two camps...those who don't want any electronic voting, and those who want paper-free electronic voting. Nobody wants to discuss the middle ground.

[DRoseDARs]

12. Moderate minds think alike. n/t

:thumbsup:

[spooky3]

15. Having done a little bit of work with my county, I can offer one explan-

ation. It's that the companies producing these machines tell you they cannot retrofit them without a HUGE expense, and they "aren't sure that they can do it."

That was the response a Dem leader and I got when we contacted the producer of our BBV machines, about what it would take to do it.

Now, why would it be so hard and so expensive?

[DRoseDARs]

16. That's exactly the BS they tried in Nevada...

...and we called them on it; told them to incorporate a voter-verified papertrail. Not nearly as far as this all needs to go, but it's a step in the correct direction.

[spooky3]

36. Good for you. I wish our county Dem leaders would push on this.

[Cleita]

19. It's known as double-entry bookkeeping. It should apply to

votes the same as it does to money.

[bvar22]

21. "Receipts" not good enought.

A Voter Verified Paper Ballot must be printed out, verified by the voter, and then deposited in a Ballot Box observed by wittnesses. These Ballot Boxes then MUST be secured as evidence with a Chain of Custody until 1 year AFTER the beginning of office.

ONLY the above can safeguard our voting process. Simple receipts are not effective.

[Xithras]

65. But paper ballots are just as vulnerable to fraud and tampering.

Every single major election of the last 50 years has been followed by stories of ballot boxes "lost" in a back room, "forgotten" in a polling station, found floating down a river, or located by a bum in a dumpster. It's the oldest and most widespread form of vote fraud in the country, and people are rarely arrested and almost never imprisoned for it.

Electronic voting systems capable of directly transmitting their vote totals to a central counting server eliminate this fraud by removing the human from the equation. What we need isn't a touch screen tied to a traditional ballot, but another "middle" solution that can provide the speed and tamper resistance of an electronic system with the reliability and recountability of a paper ballot system. I maintain that the best way to achieve that is to generate a paper-tape receipt that can be rescanned later if the vote needs to be verified.

[Wilms]

43. Among the problems...

1. Trying to get a recount. Witness Florida 2000, and Ohio 2004.

2. As for "receipts", survey says most voters didn't check their VVPAT in November. That surprised me, but I accepted the survey results, and promptly thought, "Uh-oh".

3. There's the argument about the DRE recording one thing, and the VVPAT another. As a computer person, you'll realize that's a risk, and that it isn't mitigated if it takes a recount to get the records compared. Or if by the time you get a recount, the thermal paper has faded to blank.

Verified Voting is being pushed, however.

[ariellyn]

56. More than receipts are needed, audit capability and open source

software with access to the programming are the issues. Until we get both, these machines should be outlawed. Too bad only touchscreens are outlawed since all electronic machines are touchscreen.

[Kazak]

67. Screw that...nothing wrong with paper.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[cestpaspossible]

13. Working link to bill text and related

Here is Wiseman's bill: http://data.opi.state.mt.us/bills/2005/billhtml/HB0297.htm

A related bill in the Montana legislature that became law is Jon Ellingson's: http://data.opi.state.mt.us/bills/2005/billhtml/SB0302.htm

[Eric J in MN]

17. The bill allows touchscreens with printers. That isn't banning

touchscreens, as you should have done.

[cestpaspossible]

27. Only for a person who is disabled and can't use a paper ballot.

(k) uses a paper ballot that allows votes to be manually counted, except as provided in subsection (2).

(2) A direct recording electronic system that does not mark a paper ballot may be used to facilitate voting by a disabled voter pursuant to the Help America Vote Act of 2002, 42 U.S.C. 15301, et seq., if:

(a) (i) a direct recording electronic system that uses a paper ballot has not yet been certified by the federal election assistance commission; or

(ii) a direct recording electronic system that marks a paper ballot has not yet been approved by the secretary of state pursuant to 13-17-101; and

(b) the system records votes in a manner that will allow the votes to be printed and manually counted or audited if necessary.
http://data.opi.state.mt.us/bills/2005/billhtml/HB0297.htm

It's a pretty short bill; I'm surprised you didn't read the whole thing.

Can you come up with better verbiage that would allow it to comply with HAVA?

[Eric J in MN]

39. The line " uses a paper ballot that allows votes to be manually counted"

can be interpreted as allowing electronic voting machines as long as they print paper ballots.

[cestpaspossible]

41. Yeah I think the thread title is a mischaracterization.

The bill does not outlaw voting machines; it mandates paper ballots.

Note the word is not 'receipt' but 'ballot'.

[im10ashus]

20. EXCELLENT!

Thanks for the post.

[Catamount]

22. Great development!

All states should do this!
:bounce:

[eleny]

23. At first I thought you were joshing

This is the some great news for today. A real dent in right wing tactics. Hmmmm... I like Montana, even the weather. Maybe it's the state to drag the camper up to and spend some vacation funds!

[cestpaspossible]

28. No sales tax. Buy a car while you're here....

[eleny]

32. Wow! I forgot

It's been a few years since we visited. Met great people there. And my car is a '91. Hmmm... more thinking! Will talk to hubby tonight. I mean it - Montana is a great and beautiful place. I know, though, that you want visitors and then you want us to go home! We tried that in Colorado but it doesn't work. :D

[B Calm]

25. I'm glad to see that at least one state takes the right to vote

and the right for the vote to be counted seriously!

[Jane Austin]

26. WooHoo!!

This should be the priority of every Democratic-majority legislature.

Congratulations, Montana!

JF

[feelthebreeze]

29. Can't seem to post to election thread, help...

me to transfer this over there. Thanks DUer's.

[Just Me]

30. AWESOME!!! This is a state-by-state activism we must pursue!!!

WV enacted a law requiring a paper trail. Although some folks didn't think that was enough, I was pretty damned happy about it.

Seriously though,...all those who are sincere activists in battleground states MUST push their legislators on this voting issue. Push HARD!!!!

[jmowreader]

34. You know what the rebuttal's gonna be, right?

"But Montana only has 900,000 people! They can hand-count 900,000 ballots in one night!"

Aw bullshit, folks...all higher population means is you get more people to count ballots!

I can see having ballots with detachable presidential and congressional races. Pull off the national races, sort them into Democratic and Republican piles, and count them with a printer's counting machine, then hand-tabulate the third-party candidates and the local/state races.

[Stevepol]

37. The real problem isn't the voting machines; it's the central tabulators.

It's not the printing of a ballot but allowing the machines to do the counting. To allow the machines to count the votes is a pretty big loophole it seems to me, or am I mis-reading this?:

"The ballots may be counted by machine, and may be marked for the voter by a machine."

[cestpaspossible]

40. This bill's not the whole story, you must read Jon Ellingson's bill also

http://data.opi.state.mt.us/bills/2005/billhtml/SB0302.htm


Now in fact it does not require hand counts, as I wish it did, but I will draw your attention to Section 13-17-103, subsections k and l:

(k) records votes in a manner that allows the votes to be printed on paper so that votes can be manually counted or audited if necessary; and

(l) allows auditors to access and monitor any software program while it is running on the system to determine whether the software is running properly.

I'm not saying that verbiage is perfect, but I am asking that if anyone has any suggestions for how it can be improved, please let's see it. If I agree it's an improvement I will personally bring it to Jon and lobby him to introduce it at the next session (he is the Senate President).

[paparush]

42. Holy F@cking Sh@t!!!!

That's GREAT news!! There IS sanity left in America.

Dude, I'm copying that to every news outlet I've got in my blast list and I'm sending it to every NC state senator/representative.

[Nothing Without Hope]

44. OUTSTANDING!!!! The mantra is (hi, Andy!) VOTER-VERIFIED PAPER BALLOTS

This is a great post and a cause for hope. Thank you!

:woohoo: :applause: :toast:

Recommended - and I hope someone shows this to Andy Stephenson as a get-well gift!

:loveya: :hi:

[Andy_Stephenson]

47. I am dog tired...

and would jump for joy if I could. This is terrific! I am absolutely ecstatic. Now Montana needs a stringent auditing bill and you will be on the top of the list of states that are doing things right!

Go Montana!!!!!!!! :bounce:

[Nothing Without Hope]

61. Hello Andy! What a treat to see you there, dog-tired or not.

I thought this thread title might cheer you - though, reading through the whole thread, it looks like they need some help with the wording of further legislation. Seems to me that you're just the person to help them do it right. They've got the right idea, but they need some special expertise. I hope you read through the whole thread and pick up on the ambiguities and the desire to get it right, then give the benefit of yours.

And until you're well, you can jump for joy metaphorically and save it up for a real one when you're all healed. I hope you get a picture of THAT jump to share with us.

:loveya:

[Nothing Without Hope]

46. PLEASE FIX YOUR LINK - IT DOESN'T WORK! n/t

[kansasblue]

48. 'meet me in Montana...'

Ok.. I'm moving to Montana. :-)

[Jose Diablo]

49. It's a good start

but don't forget the 'Optiscan' machines too. Even though there is a ballot, the scanning and tabulating of these paper ballots can be manipulated in the computer that counts these ballots. This was done in Ohio this last election.

There are many ways to 'file the cogs' in a mechanical/electronic polling booth.

I am an 'old fashioned' kind of guy. I like the old paper and pencil kid of ballot that's put in a slot on a ballot box and counted by hand. True, there can still be fraud by just plain old box stuffing or having the sheriff lose the ballot box on the way to the counting place. But with physical vigilance, its harder to commit election fraud in this way. And election fraud certainly cannot be done in a central command post with a 'old fashioned' way of voting. With computers there is always a way to easily commit election fraud, like Karl set-up in 2004 to 'backdoor' the various election computers around the country.

[rigel99]

52. I'm with Diablo

you cannot let any computer of any kind count our votes.. not even scanners known for 3-5% misscan rate (do you want to tell 3 voters out of 100 their votes got 'lost' somehow).

you can fix all the ballot box stuffing by 2 things...
with not designing for instance a better ballot that goes left to right like this: (eliminating
under/over votes by making the no vote explicit and the write-in next to and not under the candidates)

Circle Only One, Circling more than one makes the vote a No Preference. Only write-in
candidates that are not listed already.

0 John Kerry 0 George Bush 0 No Preference 0 Write-in ______________
As for the age old problem of ballot box stuffing by crooked sheriffs, how about buying 2 $2.00

combination locks, one for county official and one for citizen who will open it in full view of other

citizens..... some election reform monitoring group that is respected nationwide (like the pollwatching orgs).

Diablo, I'm here to pronounced you CORRECT AS HELL and give you the DU Blue Democratic Medal of Coolness...

[cestpaspossible]

55. please see post 40 nt

[Jose Diablo]

59. Well, yes, sort of.

But that is really not my point.

The point I am making is I think it's a bad idea to have computers anyplace near the voting process.

Any verification process as always after the confetti has been swept-up and people are back to just going about their business.

Why is it so important for us as a people to use the latest technology, especially when that technology cannot be seen or touched. I think, we as a people have 'gadgetitus'. We love our little toys and are always looking for new ways to place these toys into use. I am saying the voting process is far too important to allow an unproven technology anywhere near it.

The stakes in the voting process are nothing less than our jobs, our liberty and even our lives. Yet we jump on some bandwagon to forge ahead, more or less giving politicians the green light to do whatever they want.

Maybe others trust politicians, but I don't. Nor should politicians be trusted. Any of them, that goes for both sides of the aisle. It is only the politicians that can destroy us and we just forge ahead without saying, "what are you doing?".

Does this clarify my point better, about the differences of verified paper ballot versus not even going down that computer road?

Edit: What is the rush to know who won within 2-3 hours of the last polling place being closed? Why the rush with new technology just so some media outlet can report the results. Wouldn't it be better to make sure the voting is accurate rather than rushing the results with computers? Like I said before, I'm 'old fashioned' and prefer accuracy to speed, especially with voting for the direction our county takes in the future.

[LightningFlash]

60. You have an interesting theory....nt

[FreedomAngel82]

50. Yeah!

This is beautiful! Thank you for this news!!!

:kick:

[Warren DeMontague]

51. Now watch that Mr. Wiseman doesn't "suddenly" become "embroiled"

in scandals that appear out of nowhere, like our SOS Kevin Shelley in CA did.

Right after he went after Diebold, the MSM (particularly the "liberal" SF Chron) suddenly seemed EXTREMELY interested in every single thing Shelley had ever done. No one ever proved anything about the guy (and considering the charges were things like $1500 "no-bid" contracts.. Um, if those are fair game, why is Cheney still Veep?) but after months of no-holds barred negative press, he was forced from office, to be replaced by a Arnold Toady with a Diebold-friendly team.

[LightningFlash]

57. This is some great news for me!

I find this great news indeed, I think it may be time for me to move to Montana. Boy, do we sure need to get rid of all the touch-screen machines. I'm sorry but Tom DeLayly has ruined the image of Texas beyond repair. I'm ashamed and feel sick just thinking about his grin.

[Swamp Rat]

58. Tom DeLay eats cockroaches

[DRoseDARs]

70. Tom DeLay is eating his own kind! Eww. n/t

[shance]

62. Montana has just set precedent for what must happen nationwide.

It's time to scrap the privatization of our vote and scrap the usage of these machines.

[AP]

63. Will MT be a Dem pick-up for 2006 & 2008? Let's run candidates who can

win MT.

[AtLiberty]

64. Please, please, please don't replace them with optiscan

That's happened to three counties in PA. They proudly ridded themselves of touchscreen, only to replace them with opti-scan.

Booooooooo

[cestpaspossible]

68. Montana already uses optically scanned paper ballots

almost exclusively.

[KelleyKramer]

66. link is broken ...

anyone have a direct link to this bill??

[cestpaspossible]

69. I posted the link upthread